How Reid holds veto power over Obama

Even in a hopelessly gridlocked Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has found a way to work his will on energy policy — by micromanaging President Barack Obama’s appointments to two normally placid agencies.

The Nevada Democrat’s unusually tight grip on nominations for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has given him an effective veto power over the people Obama appoints to their five-member leadership boards. They in turn have advanced policy priorities important to his state, from blocking the proposed nuclear waste site in Yucca Mountain to opening the electrical grid to more wind, solar and geothermal plants across the West.

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Reid’s role allows him to send the message that he’s Nevada’s best hope for fostering an economically promising green-energy industry and avoiding becoming the destination for the nation’s radioactive waste. “As a majority leader, if you don’t take on these parochial issues and use your considerable clout to defend your state’s interests, you really serve at great peril,” said Eric Washburn, a lobbyist who was an aide to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and briefly worked for Reid.

But that also means that when a favored appointee runs into trouble, Reid gets embroiled in the mess too — and he’s made it clear he’s keeping score.

One NRC commissioner was forced out last month and another is due to depart Sunday after it became clear he’d have trouble winning a new term, partly because of their stances on Yucca and because they joined a revolt against former agency Chairman Gregory Jaczko, a onetime Reid aide. Reid has spent the past two years repeatedly trashing one of those commissioners, Obama appointee William Magwood, calling him a “disaster,” “unethical,” “incompetent,” a “sh— stirrer” and a “first-class rat.”

Reid also opposed extending the chairmanship of FERC leader Cheryl LaFleur this summer, telling The Wall Street Journal that she had tried to undo policies of another of his allies, former Chairman Jon Wellinghoff.

In these cases, Reid’s agenda isn’t a partisan one. In fact, most of the appointees who have felt his sharpest stings are Democrats.

Moreover, both the NRC and FERC are nominally independent agencies, whose leaders are difficult to remove from their posts.

Senate majority leaders wield power over confirmations as a matter of course, but Reid has shown special interest in FERC, which oversees the electric grid, and the NRC, which regulates nuclear power plants. Typically, the chairs of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and Environment and Public Works Committee play the lead role in vetting those agencies’ White House nominees.

And the results of Reid’s interventions haven’t always been pretty. Not only did Jaczko depart the NRC early, amid accusations of verbally abusing employees and colleagues, but FERC has also seen an unusual amount of drama in the past year, including the flame-out of Reid-supported FERC nominee Ron Binz under fierce opposition from the coal industry and conservative groups.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski denounced Reid’s heavy-handedness while complaining that his moves at the NRC have left nuclear policy in “full disarray.”

“His efforts to impose his handpicked choices on the NRC and FERC — to name just two — have politicized what should be policy-based, independent agencies,” said Murkowski, the top Republican on the Senate energy panel.

“The NRC and FERC appear to be unique in that Reid exerts influence over the selection of chairmen,” said Tyson Slocum, who directs Public Citizen’s energy program and has supported Obama’s FERC nominees. From the standpoint of promoting good government, he said, “I do think that it’s time that Reid hand over his control back to the Senate committee chairs.”

Reid’s office repeatedly declined to respond to questions from POLITICO or submit to an interview, but he offered a snarky defense when The Wall Street Journal asked him in June about the attention he was paying to FERC nominees.

“Oh really? No kidding,” Reid told the newspaper. “Wow, that is amazing — that a majority leader who has a responsibility of selecting people would have some opinion as to who he suggests to the White House.”

Some observers of the agencies suggest that Reid’s influence over them stems partly from a relative lack of interest by the White House.

“I have no past experience to suggest the White House cares about FERC confirmations — Reid seems to have domain over that,” one electric industry source said by email.

One longtime analyst of FERC said, “What we know is axiomatic in this town is that when the White House creates a vacuum by not managing these things, expending some time and energy on these nominations, somebody else will step into the vacuum.”

The White House wouldn’t comment on its nomination process but says it worked in partnership with Reid on the recently approved confirmation of FERC Commissioner Norman Bay, who is due to become chairman next spring under a deal that also gave LaFleur a fresh five-year term on the board.

“We, of course, work closely with Sen. Reid and other members of the Senate to nominate and confirm the best, most qualified candidate for open positions across the government,” then-White House energy spokesman Matt Lehrich said last month.

Others say that in the case of FERC, the stakes of the nominations have been raised because of the administration’s carbon policies.